The past few months I have been trying to teach myself how to screen print. Screen printing is a time-consuming and difficult process to learn especially when self-taught. I have put a lot of time, money, and literal tears into the learning process. Some of the mistakes I have made have me slamming my hand to my forehead because I was trying to rush. Some mistakes had me in tears while I wash out my screen in defeat.

I have wasted hundreds of sheets of paper and about 20 t-shirts during my learning. I don't usually take on learning projects that could lead to so many failures, but I have a vision for my future as an artist that requires screen printing. Being a digital artist has some great perks. No mess, no cleanup. When I am done or tired of working on a piece I can walk away without much thought. Screen printing requires a lot more attention and care. Dealing with my failures is a must. I have forced myself to get back up even if the failure had me in tears.

Successful people tend to distort our perception of success. We never got to see them when they were down, or when they were struggling to find their way. All we see is the results of multiple failures, long nights, and many moments of discouragement. Any person looking to grow is going to make mistakes. We as individuals need to learn not to be so hard on ourselves when we mess up. I wanted to write this to let you know that even though I am having great success with my learning, it has come with a lot of issues.

Check out these two videos below to learn a little more about my illustration process.

Line art Time LapseI use Adobe Illustrator to produce the line work for all my prints. This screen capture has been sped up quite a bit. It took around 20 minutes of work and turned it into less than 42 seconds! I plan on posting tips and tricks for great Illustrator line work in the future.

Hope Basic ColoringThis video shows the beginning process of selecting colors in Photoshop. I always start out with a flat color palette and then progress with the dynamic coloring as I work through the piece.